Travels in Turkey and back to EnglandChishull, Edmund
History
Travels in Turkey and back to England
Chishull, Edmund
Turkey -- Description and travel -- Early works to 1800
_Vienna_ is seated on a point of land, made by the confluence of the river
_Wien_ and a branch of the _Danube_, which latter here enlarges itself
about a thousand paces from its main chanel. The city is of a moderate
circumference, scarce containing more than four thousand paces within
the circuit of the walls; but round these, at a large distance, are
extended many diffused suburbs, by means of which it may be placed among
the larger cities of Europe. The fortifications are effective, regular,
and intire; a large uninterrupted glacis, a strong pale, a deep and
wide foss, a substantial curtain lined with brick, thirteen bastions,
and as many ravelins, with six well defended gates. Answerable to these
there are two arsenals within the city; one for ammunition and artillery
belonging to the Emperor, and the other for small arms belonging to
the citizens. The streets, tho few of them broad, are yet all of them
fair and moderately straight, ranged on each side with lofty houses
of four or five stories high, built with a good appearance, tho not
really magnificent; for they shew a regularity of architecture in their
windows, cornishes, and water tables, but the materials are only brick
walls incrusted in imitation of freestone. Among the buildings of the
city are interspersed several oblong piazzas, adorned with fountains,
tho of no great art or curiosity. Yet there are two squares, each of
which exhibits a considerable public monument; one being the pillar of
the _Blessed Virgin_, and the other that of the most _Holy Trinity_. The
former of these is a brass column, adorned round the four corners of
the basis with as many figures of angels, and on the chapiter bearing
a noble statue of the _Madonna_, with her feet resting on a dragon. It
was begun by the last Emperor, and finished by the present; and exhibits
four religious or superstitious inscriptions, the chief of which is a
triumphant declaration of the immaculate conception, as now confirmed by
a papal verdict, and hence forward to be received as an article of faith.
The latter pillar, called that of the _Holy Trinity_, is a magnificent
column of marble and freestone rising sixty six feet high, almost in the
form of a pyramid. It was the work of ten years, finished in 1692, at
the expence of a hundred thousand florins, and erected by the present
Emperor in commemoration of this city, and the dukedom of _Austria_,
being delivered from the plague in the year 1679. It is adorned in
three corners with these inscriptions, _Deo Patri Creatori_, _Deo Filio
Redemptori_, _Deo Spiritui Sanctificatori_; and in three other places
with larger devotions and dedications, composed by his Imperial Majesty.
From the basis it rises in continual orbs and protuberances of clouds,
surrounded with several intire angelic figures, out of which are seen
the wings and heads of others. But on the top is represented in gilt
brass the _Most Holy Trinity_: the _Holy Ghost_, as a _dove_, irradiated;
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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